Where perfection is the only acceptable goal.

First, the personal compulsion: Steve was the primary caregiver for his parents for most of their final years. The picture that serves as part of 4OurElders logo shows Steve’s parents at their 68th wedding anniversary celebration, surrounded by their family.

While working in the eldercare industry as described below, Steve assisted his parents in choosing their first assisted living facility in Mobile, Alabama in 2004 and he, along with his wife (who also manages the care for her own mother and disabled sister), managed their care from his home 600 miles away until his parents decided they wanted to be closer to him in Arkansas.

In 2008, Steve moved his parents into a brand new facility two minutes from his home. It had all the amenities. It met all their wishes. And, it all went wrong. Check out www.brookfieldseniorcare.com for a discussion of just what happened and why www.4ourelders.com is a direct by-product of one family's twin tragedies.

Three months after the picture was taken of them at their 68th wedding anniversary celebration, Steve’s Dad was injured in an accident in his room and died 24 days later. Ten months later, Steve’s Mother suffered a terrible fall in the same room and died 25 days later. Both died conscious until their last day with the question “why” never on their lips but always in their eyes. The ultimate bad outcome had come TWICE to a family who seemed so well placed to avoid it.

The second compulsion is professional: as head of litigation for two of the largest eldercare companies in the country, as well as outside counsel for many smaller eldercare homeowners, he has defended more cases than any other single individual.

Being a person who has worked closely with operators, caregivers and clinicians in all types of elder care facilities over the last 12 years, he has investigated over 10,000 bad outcomes, over 1000 involving a death. He has tirelessly worked to find the root causes of those outcomes, irrespective of legal liability, and to evaluate the business and care processes as well as individuals who were in the care and service chain to determine what could be done better and to design and implement appropriate changes for the sole purpose of improving care and service.

Steve has an unparalleled passion for eliminating ALL bad outcomes in elder care. And while his business experience more than qualifies him to found and run 4OurElders, it does not begin to explain his passion, which is based on his parents' experiences.

Steve began to work on his vision and long-term goal to eliminate ALL bad outcomes in eldercare facilities. There can be no guarantee that accidents will not happen in any setting, especially eldercare. The problem is that in far too many eldercare facilities in this country bad outcomes are virtually guaranteed. Bad outcomes become “avoidably” inevitable when care and service is subpar. And when care and service is subpar, it is always due to poor business practices, including the owner/operators misguided approach to the bottom line as well as the way administrators, clinicians, caregivers and ancillary staff are hired, trained, rewarded, retained or let go.

This is where 4OurElders comes in. Steve has been a lawyer for almost 35 years. He has formed several small successful businesses during that time, but has now closed, withdrawn from and sold his interests in these ventures to focus 100% of his effort for the next decade on helping to improve eldercare across the country.

Why not just use the "free" advice from the many sources available online? The reasons are simple: First, most of these sources work for the very homes you are trying to evaluate. Second, if they do rely on data, it is always from publicly available sources which are tragically years out of date.

On the other hand, 4OurElders, Inc. uses real-time, onsite evaluations with tools that are available nowhere else. These tools are employed by seasoned professionals, personally trained by Steve, to find what the actual level of care and service is at the time our clients are needing this information in order to find the best possible home that provides them with the best possible experience and outcome for their loved one.

4OurElders, Inc. uses 15 different copyrighted interview outlines and related grading grids, the core of what 4OurElders uses to evaluate the care and service in the facilities it examines for its clients. These tools are ALL based on Steve’s years of professional experience as well as his personal experience with his parents. Every question, every word is designed, based his own experience combined with the over 100 years of experience of those who have collaborated with Steve to develop the vision and specifics of 4OurElders, to turn over every rock to find how committed the people are that will care for its clients to providing PERECT care and service—NO bad outcomes.